


i'm a boomerang, i'll always come back to you

by maisiedaisies



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Reincarnation, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 01:13:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5314430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maisiedaisies/pseuds/maisiedaisies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a search centuries old, Harry and Louis find each other once more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm a boomerang, i'll always come back to you

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to post this for a long time, but was afraid to because there's no scientific explanation and it's written very sloppily. Please give (nice) critique if you find necessary!
> 
> Fluffy, self-indulgent Harry and Louis oneshot because I love them with all my heart.

They always teach children to get to know a person before you judge them. That you’ll be surprised by how much you learn just from delving a little bit deeper into someone’s history, into more than what meets the judgmental eye. _Don’t judge a_ _book by its cover_.

Louis has always laughed at that, honest to god, because people really do have no idea. They have no inkling of the real truth. That if they were to get to know Louis, they would also be knowing several lifetimes buried underneath the present one he’s in. He’s been alive for thousands of years, existing in a perpetual cycle of dying and being reborn once more.

To his credit, he hides this information extraordinarily well. Ever since his very first life (taken place somewhere in a hot, dry area with lots of mountains. If he concentrates, he can still speak the language. It was crude and had no rhyme or pattern), it’s been the same. He doesn’t remember his past for much of his early years. This gives him time to adapt, to settle into the culture he’s presently living in, before the previous lives and old languages and memories of dead friends and family flood his brain again. And for hundreds of years now, (accurate calendars are extremely convenient things) he’s gleaned the knowledge that the memories always return on his fourteenth birthday.

In this life, he lived in Doncaster during his childhood. It’s one of the nicer places where he’s resided, belonging to a bursting family in a small town. Everything was all pleasantly routine, until he turned fourteen again six years ago. Nothing about waking up with the knowledge that you’re a reincarnation is routine.

In explanation, his education has to be the most meticulous it’s ever been. He’s under constant supervision, with teachers and parents tracking his marks even if it is only subconsciously. So this time turning fourteen was one of the hardest. Going to bed struggling with maths and waking up as a person who was alive when math was still in its most basic form is. Different.

So no wonder it was a surprise to his family when he transitioned from skateboarding and watching TV to writing poems and drawing masterpieces (he gives credit to his years in the Renaissance). His mum thought that he had experienced head trauma for a long time running.

Louis even purchased a map for his room, and a box of colorful pushpins. He carefully pressed a pin marking every place he’s ever lived with a precise location. It was like reliving everything again, documenting wars and traditions and people that left no mark of their own in history. The process took several hours when it only should’ve taken a few minutes.

When his map was discovered by his little sisters, he told his parents it was his travel wish list.

Scraps of paper and intricate drawings began to fill up the empty spaces in his room. They were – still are – all about one person and one person only. In some lives the person in question is a boy, some lives they are a girl, in the way that Louis has been a male in some lives and a female in others. This person is the same. They’ve been there with him since the first of his many lives. Sometimes, Louis turns fourteen only to realize that this person’s been his best friend for years. Other times, there’s a hell of a lot of searching to be done.

(In one life, he was a trader, and on one of his sea voyages he met the person in a foreign land with dark-skinned people. When the telltale tingling started in all of his limbs, he knew that he had to take craftsman’s exquisite daughter home. That it was the person he’d been looking for.)

There are some lives when the person and him don’t match up entirely. The age difference is usually pretty trivial, but there have been lives where one of them is a decade older than the other, or not suitable enough for an arranged marriage. Inconveniency usually has a way of getting in between them. There was one life where Louis was a woman in an arranged coupling, and the person was her husband’s friend. It was torture, enduring that entire life knowing her soulmate was just out of reach. She got beaten a lot for getting off task, to say the least.

He’s so in love with this person, _his_ person. This person’s the reason he believes in soulmates and fate and true love at first sight, because he’s experienced all of the above countless times. In every life that they’ve been reunited, whether the person be a he or a she, tingling shoots into all of Louis’ limbs, and he gets ecstatic knowing they’ve found him once again. When they’re together in each life, it makes everything worth it. (It feels like breathing after a long time underwater, like taking off a blindfold after years of stumbling in the dark, like an oasis after weeks travelling in the desert)

Louis has loved and pined after this person in all of his lives, and this life has proved no different.

He thinks about them every day, whether it’s going to the store and seeing wrapped salmon (their favorite food when they both lived on the coast in Vietnam) or reading something in history that took place where they were. The box that his parents gave him at his high school graduation, stuffed to the brim full of smudged paper, is tangible proof that this person holds permanent residence in his thoughts. Louis’ never tried to explain what he is exactly to his parents, but in every life his person always has without fail. It’s gotten them burned at stake for their claims, but they still stand by their philosophy of complete honesty and Louis admires them endlessly for it. He has no doubts that they’ve done the same in this life, too. Told their parents and close friends exactly who they are.

Louis’ not told his parents. It’s too complicated to explain, and he’s not fond of being ridiculed. To each their own, he supposes.

Louis is doing okay, great even. He’s got a flat in London with his best mate Liam, after moving away from Doncaster with him for university. (He’s lived here before, during the aftermath of what they call the Black Plague. It lacks the memorable stench and strewn bodies he’s used to, but otherwise it’s nearly identical, down to the last taxi) Liam’s always been rather type A, controlling and obsessive about getting everything perfect. He aspires to be a doctor, because he’s meticulous about his work and good at memorizing all of those body parts.

Louis is probably the opposite, messy and loud and vivacious. He likes socializing with people, likes to go to parties and drink his own weight in alcohol. But he does have his own standards, too. He absolutely draws the line at hooking up or anything else relatively sexual. It’s gotten him a lot of shit, with people calling him a prude and traditional, but he doesn’t care. He’s saving it for his someone, whether they meet up in this life or not. He’s very good at waiting.

He wants to be a writer of some sort (which is the most cliché thing in the _world_ , but it’s true). Either a songwriter or an author, but he thinks he can relate more with music. Has always been interested in different genres and their origins, how similar lyrics can sound completely different with various instruments or rephrasing. He thinks he’d like to specialize in that sort of writing, but the music industry is extraordinarily competitive and there’s a lot of risk making it into a career.

He would make a good songwriter, he thinks. In every lifetime, he’s sung songs and learned about different music in different cultures. To combine them all together would be eerie but an amazing opportunity nonetheless, and he can’t wait to let the world hear.

Almost always, he writes about his someone.

They’re a good source of inspiration. He writes about looking past imperfections, souls combining and becoming one, all of the proper sappy stuff that Liam raises his eyebrows at. By society’s standards, Louis should for all intents and purposes not be as romantic as he is. He should be motivated and focused on his career, not writing about love and soulmates. But Louis has always been bad with playing by the rules. He doesn’t care how much shit he gets, writing about his person always calms him and makes him feel like a part of them is sitting right next to him. He’s not giving that comfort up just to fit under the label other people have put on him.

It’s an overcast, grey evening. He’s recently found a café that’s just off campus, and has taken to occupying it when he’s writing or when he needs to get away from Liam’s more stressful qualities, because. The bloke’s intense classes are slowly unravelling him. Lately, his friend’s taken to cleaning the flat when he’s in one of his awful moods, something that Louis considers to be an absolute last resort. It’s unnerving, it makes Louis uncomfortable and anxious just _watching_ Liam wipe down their counters and put dishes away voluntarily.

On this day, he gets tired of watching Liam try to work out names of strange diseases. When his roommate starts mindlessly arranging the things on his desk, that’s when Louis takes it as his cue to leave. He puts on his jacket, and braves the downpour to head out to the café he’s recently discovered. It’s out of the way, sure, but it’s tranquil, a commodity hard to find in this city. When he gets there, he orders a warm drink and a muffin fresh from the oven, breathing it in appreciatively as he makes his way over to a booth, pulling out a folder from his bag with his notes.

As he settles down and takes his first bite, the door opens.

Abruptly, tingling explodes in every vein in his body. It’s familiar, a sensation that’s as old as time, and Louis’ heart jolts and starts racing because there’s only one meaning behind this. His head is running a million miles per hour, memories flooding back all of a sudden, and he wants to break down because _finally_. Fucking _finally_. He’s not gonna die alone.

The tall, lanky boy that’s just stepped in is clearly distracted. He’s scanning the vicinity frantically, his motives for coming here clearly forgotten. Louis stares at him, unable to keep a smile off of his face. _Come on, look at me_. He’s about two seconds away from either laughing or crying.

Suddenly, the boy’s eyes meet his, and he seems to get it right away. His face relaxes, and he practically races over on his gangly legs.

“Is it you?” He asks Louis excitedly and _wow_ , his voice is deep. Louis is fucking gone for it.

“It’s me, love,” Louis says, his voice shaking just like his bottom lip, “Oh my god. I’ve missed you so much.”

“Fucking hell,” The boy’s crying all of a sudden, smiling so big that his dimples are popping out, dimples that Louis is instantly infatuated with. He loves every single thing about this boy, “I can’t believe it. We haven’t – since _Peru_ –”

“Since then, yeah,” Louis pulls the boy towards him, and their bodies crash together. He clings, safe in the knowledge that this is _real_ , this is really his love, this is actually happening. There’s no lifelong search that ends in vain, no untimely cases of tuberculosis killing them off or caste systems keeping them separated. Not this time around.

The boy hugs him _hard_ , crying, and when Louis pulls back several minutes later, he’s fighting tears, too. He rarely cries, but clearly the exception is standing in front of him. The person working the counter and the other people in the shop are staring at them both curiously, and fondly. The tingling feeling is just starting to fade, fizzing out into humming adrenaline and bone-melting relief. 

“Shit,” The boy stutters, clearly trying to pull himself together, “I can’t believe this.” He sits down opposite of Louis while Louis clears all of his work and puts it back in his bag. _That_ is something that can wait for now. He’s very good at waiting, after all.

“I-I don’t even know what to _say_ , really,” Louis stammers, “I didn’t think I would be lucky enough to find you.”

“I know, exactly,” The boy wipes his eyes, taking a deep breath, “I dunno, everything’s gone so smoothly, and I kept telling myself that having that _and_ you would be like, impossible.” He huffs a breath of shaky laughter.

Louis knows the feeling, like the back of his hand. He’s lived by it, because nothing has ever been perfect for them. There was always something keeping them separated or making their love forbidden, it seemed, and in his lives where everything was just fine and dandy his soulmate (because he is absolutely and completely convinced that the boy in front of him is his soulmate, there’s no doubt in his mind) was nowhere to be found.

“Do you live here? In London?” Because that’s the first step, trying to gauge how much they’ll have to sacrifice in order to be together. Amazingly, the boy nods. And then he tells him that he goes to the same university.

Louis gapes, hardly being able to pull himself together, until he forces himself to close his mouth, “Me too. That’s … unbelievable.” It’s the best thing he’s ever heard, actually.

“I’m filled to the _brim_ with happiness, honestly,” His other half exclaims, putting a hand to his mouth to try and cover his giant grin. Memories come flooding back. The boy in front of him has always been poetic and optimistic, always had a positive outlook on the world when nearly everyone was against him (more than once). He can find the good in almost everything, and he’s shown it to Louis in almost the hardest of times.

“ _Look!” She exclaimed. Louis followed her gaze to a scarab crawling along the sand. It was an old sign of good luck right there in front of them, even though the kingdom had been ravaged by drought and famine for years now. Louis never thought he would see something so ironic (and he has thought the same thing a hundred times since then). But his love, who had once been the beauty of the kingdom and was now weakened and thinned by hunger, was smiling wide as she held up the insect._

_“Maybe now the crops will finally grow,” She sighed. Even her breathing sounded musical. Everything she did was laced with elegance, as though she was the embodiment of nature and harmony. Or maybe the brutal sun was messing with Louis’ mind._

_“They haven’t grown for years,” Louis had said wearily, examining the bug that crawled around on her palm and tickled the skin, “Don’t let superstitions fool you into false hope.”_

_“The hope I have isn’t false,” She had said, as though scandalized, “I have you, don’t I? That means everything will be alright, in the end.”_

It’s strange to know that the same girl of browned skin and long cotton dresses resides in the gangly boy in front of him. But Louis has seen a lot of things in his time, and he’s constantly surprised by all things big and small.

“I don’t know your name,” The boy blurts suddenly from across the table, adjusting the silky headscarf on his head endearingly. Their identical smiles haven’t faded even slightly.

“Oh, Louis Tomlinson,” Louis laughs, and it all sounds very formal. This person in front of him has known him for centuries, understands and reads him better than he ever could on his own. Introductions are almost completely unnecessary.

“Harry Styles,” The boy, now identified as Harry, informs him in return, flashing a dimpled grin, “I love your name. It’s so poetic. At least you’re name isn’t –” Louis’ eyes widen.

“ _Nonono_ , don’t say it,” Louis giggles, “I can’t bear the shame, not even now.”

“Hush, you know you loved it,” Harry winks, but his shoulders are trembling with laughter.

“That was _awful_ ,” Louis exclaims, burying his face in his hands, “What were my parents even _thinking_?”

Harry giggles, trying hard to contain his laughter in the public place but failing miserably.

For the next hour, they reminisce in quiet voices. It’s strange at first, it always is, because they have to fill the gaps in for each other about what’s happened during their separation. Sometimes they find out that in a previous life they had lived fairly close to each other on a global scale, but had never crossed, and it’s maddening to think about how it could’ve been different had Louis taken a different route one day and stumbled across his love. How much misery and loneliness could’ve been spared.

This time, though, they were in completely different parts of the world. Louis was in Oman, Harry was in Estonia, and before that Louis was in Nunavut, (and Louis despises cold weather, what a joke) while Harry was in Japan.

“Why don’t we ever live in Hawaii?” Harry pouts, “Or, you know. The Bahamas or Fiji. A nice island somewhere really warm.”

“We could get our own little boat and go fishing every day,” Louis humors him, “Start our own little bed and breakfast. Eat pineapple and drink martinis on the beach.” That really does sound like heaven, actually.

“I feel like with you, anything’s possible,” Harry confesses quietly, playing with his fingers but never breaking eye contact, “We’re both fluent in what must be dozens of languages, we could go anywhere in the world almost. I’m just scared to travel alone, because I always thought that maybe I would be leaving you behind if I went off somewhere.”

“And now we’re heeeeeere,” Louis sings, spreading his hands in a _ta-da_ movement, “Literally. In the same city, at the same university. I still can’t wrap my head around it, god.”

“You have to meet all my friends,” Harry bursts, flushing with excitement, “I’m guessing you haven’t told anyone about um, us or you or anything like usual, right?” Louis nods in confirmation, “Well, I’ve told my closest friends and family _all_ _about you_. Prepare yourself, Louis Tomlinson, because I think I’ve talked about you nonstop ever since I was fourteen.”

“I can hardly wait,” Louis says, and he means it with every fiber in his being. He wants to become a part of Harry’s life, to meld himself into everything Harry does, this instant.

But right now, having him _here,_ blushing and giggling, is more than enough to sustain him. He's very good at waiting, after all. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm more than willing to add chapters onto this, but it's up to you guys if I should continue. If not, I'll continue to write more Harry/Louis and work on my other stories. I hope you all enjoy!!


End file.
